Study reveals poor health, high mortality for men

At every age, American males have poorer health and a higher risk of mortality than females, according to a University report published in the May issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

"Men have higher age-adjusted death rates than women for the 15 leading causes of death in the U.S., with the exception of Alzheimer's disease," says sociologist David R. Williams, a senior research scientist at the Institute for Social Research. "And both Black and white men have death rates at least twice as high as women for accidents, suicide, cirrhosis of the liver and homicide."

Although all categories of men are doing poorly in terms of health, Williams noted that men with low incomes and educations, minority men with low incomes and educations, and middle-class Black men are at especially high risk.

The findings were reported April 29 in Washington, D.C., at a National Press Club briefing sponsored by the American Journal of Public Health and by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, which recently announced a new program to deliver health services to low-income men of color.

According to Williams, multiple factors contribute to the elevated health risks among men. These factors include economic marginality, adverse working conditions and gendered coping responses to stress that lead to high levels of substance use and other damaging behaviors, and to an aversion toward protective health behaviors.

Compared to women, for example, men are more likely to smoke cigarettes (26 percent vs. 22 percent) and twice as likely to consume five or more drinks of alcohol in one day, Williams notes.

"Beliefs about masculinity and manhood that are deeply rooted in culture and supported by social institutions play a role in shaping the behavior patterns of men in ways that have negative consequences for their health," Williams says. "Men are socialized to project strength, individuality, autonomy, dominance, stoicism and physical aggression, and to avoid demonstrations of emotion or vulnerability that could be construed as weakness."

These cultural orientations, along with structural social inequalities that include the differential distribution of desirable occupational opportunities by race, contribute to the gender gap in health, Williams says.

Comparing the health of men to the health of women does not deny or minimize the pressing need to reduce health and social inequalities for women, especially women of color, he says. But increasing awareness of the health challenges men also face is the first step to improving the living and working conditions that help to create those challenges, he says.

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